Have had a few plays with the new DSLR video rig delivered from Korea, courtesy of Ebay Seller Gini.1989….

I was a bit nervous, as he is not one of the big names, and he is a lot cheaper…
But I gave it a punt…
And I have to say that this is one fabulous bit of gear, hewn out of solid steel as far as I can see, very very well engineered.
And delivered in 2 weeks to Nottingham all the way from Seoul.

Cant say enough good things really, its a work of art.

And it even came with a few extra bits that I cant seem to figure out what to do with!

Thanks Gini!

Now if someone can please recommend a good Final Cut Pro trainer in Nottingham, Leicester, or Derby, then I would be a happy Photographer!

The cold weather has made for other more technical challenges as well. Whilst the 5d and 7d cameras seem to function pretty well down to -10 or so, we do have to be especially carefull when bringing cold soaked machines into a warm and humid environment. The lenses quickly mist up, and whilst this is bad because it stops us taking, this condensation causes even more problems to the electronics.

During the early part of my career in Canada, I wrote off several Contax RTS cameras by not taking proper care.

The only solution is to have a stock of zip lock bags, and seal all the gear into the bags until they reach the ambient temperature of the location your working in!

At least we no longer have to worry about the film freezing, but it sure takes me back.

My other big weather tip is proper boots! We have our Sorel Caribou’s on! Proper Canadian Boots!

Take care and try not to slip!

Cheers
Doug

No doubt we will now spend more time updating profiles and posting the latest on X factor,  than actually doing something productive like taking pictures,  but Ho Hum!

Quite simply the new media has failed to establish the credibility that they needed to win people over in the long-term, after the rush of excitement and high initial takeup.

Internet marketers and spammers have flooded this unregulated and unedited space and destroyed the credibility of this media as some sort of holy grail of unbiased and raw information.

This shift however has not been capitalized on by the traditional media,  who could use their well established brands to resurrect confidence in their content.  The same barometer also shows that trust has shifted towards expertise,  and this could easily be turned to the traditional medias advantage.   However instead of doing this and exploiting the obvious weakness of the social media,  the traditional media’s trust rating are continuing to slip.

An excellent example of how flawed the social media is in being able to build credibility is the revelation by Zscaler in their April 5th blog that 15-20% of all results returned by Google for popular search terms are links to malicious sites,  and that in some instances this can rise to as high as 90%.

This is really a damning indictment of the value of the new media.  If you want something you can trust and something reliable,  then there needs to be a level of intervention to filter out the rubbish.   This has been the role of the traditional media for hundreds of years… build a brand that readers and viewers trust,  and provide information that reinforce and stems from the credibility of that brand.

Quite why the traditional media has failed to recognise that the answer to their problems is to strengthen the value of the brand by building strong high quality and unique content is beyond me.   Clearly the sourcing of editorial content from the major agencies such as PA,  from direct PR marketing and from the paparazzi is not providing the material that they need to build their credibility.   There are very real reasons,  namely the lack of unbiased expertise at the suppliers and the inherent conflict of interest that these suppliers bring to their customers,  why this will never be so.

The traditional media needs to rebuild its diverse supplier base,  and invest in bringing in new, high quality, and unique content which is in line with their brand and reinforces it. 

Until they see this and start to invest properly in content,  they will continue to struggle.  The answer that has been embraced by the traditional media to the challenge of the new media has been to become more like the new media and cut their own self-generated content.  To Dumb Down.  This is the exact opposite of what they should be doing.

We purchased 3 new 7d’s and 3 new 5dmk2′s  in October,  so we have had a good broad range of jobs to put them through their paces on.  We have done some low light party work..  I have done some night work at East Midlands Airport…  we have done some news jobs… as well as the normal range of portraits, conferences, and photocalls.

At first,  like many others,  the AF left me a bit bewildered and confused.  I was not a happy puppy. 

After struggling for a few weeks,  and getting more and more annoyed,  I finally broke down and read the instructions.

Now,  that may sound like a obvious first step.. but as a highly experience photographer who has used every camera between the Nikkormat FTN and the Canon 1dsmk2… I sure dont need no stinking instructions to tell me how to take a picture…..  Well thats what I thought.

After spending maybe 10 minutes with my head in the book… I had set it up just the way I like it.  And guess what… its great!

I now feel more confident with this machine than I did with the 1d mk2 which it replaced.   So,  happy as charlie.

None of our machines have had any of the “Ghosting” problems that others have reported,  so we have had no issues with image quality at all.

The noise on this machine is the best I have ever seen.   It gives a lovely nice almost filmic sort of grain at high speeds… ie plus 3200 iso.

Overall the machines have exceeded our expectations.  I am now wondering why I bothered with the more expensive 5dmk2…

A great camera.  Highly recommended.